President Trump’s new Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, asked about Idaho’s proposal to allow insurers to sidestep Obamacare’s regulations, assured Congress on Wednesday that he is committed to enforcing Obamacare if a state violates the law.
“There is a rule of law that we need to enforce,” Azar said during a hearing before the House Ways & Means Committee.
Azar didn’t specifically say that HHS would go after Idaho, where the state’s Republican Gov. Butch Otter, in an effort to counteract high premiums, issued an executive order earlier this year that lets insurers sell plans in the state that do not meet the law’s requirements.
On Wednesday, Blue Cross offered up five insurance plans to Idaho’s insurance regulators that do not meet Obamacare’s regulations. Many experts have questioned whether this would survive a legal challenge, because Obamacare requires plans sold on the law’s insurance marketplaces, which offer coverage on the individual market, to meet certain benefit requirements.These include preventing insurers from charging people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums and requiring insurers to cover 10 essential health benefits that include maternity care, mental health and hospitalization. One of the Blue Cross plans does not include coverage of all 10 health benefits, choosing not to offer maternity care, according to the Idaho Statesman.
The plans also would include a $1 million cap on annual coverage costs. Obamacare does not allow any cap to be put on coverage.
Idaho’s action has put pressure on the federal government to step in and enforce rules that the Trump administration has pushed to repeal.
